And while it was true that a subtle approach might entail less danger, he had not joined the Third Bureau of the RGB to avoid danger; he had put himself through the hell of selection and training so that he could throw himself into the thick of the action, and be rewarded for it. Major Ho expected results, and he would get them.
With two of his men left outside to guard the street, Park nodded to his partner, Chae Hyoon-seok, and approached the arms broker with his 9mm handgun already raised.
Cole was down on the street in under a minute, a Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger he’d bought earlier in the city palmed by his side. He wished he’d brought some weapons with him from Cambodia, but he’d been unwilling to travel with them; since the hijacking of the Fu Yu Shan, airports throughout Indonesia were undergoing thorough security checks in a bid to find any cargo which might be being shipped around the area.
The dagger would have to do.
He saw the two men left outside, eyeballing him as he crossed the street. Cole made a show of ignoring them, fumbling in his pocket for the keys to his rental.
The trouble was, he had no idea who these people were. If they were Chinese, they could well be from the PLA special forces, which made them US allies under the Mutual Defense Treaty; and if they made Wong Xiang talk, then wouldn’t that be a good thing?
And yet for some reason that Cole couldn’t quite articulate, he had a bad feeling about these guys; something about them was off, and Cole had learnt over the years to listen to his instincts. If his gut was telling him something, it was probably his subconscious taking in millions of pieces of information, sorting and deciphering them in fractions of a second and making a decision based on evidence that his conscious mind simply had yet to process.
He knew that the two men would be able to spot a fellow operative, and so stumbled slightly, throwing his balance off intentionally; not so much as to appear drunk, but just enough to disarm the men slightly, disguise his true ability.
But it was no good — the men were too well-trained, too sharp to be deceived, and Cole watched as they started to draw their venerable yet highly reliable Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistols, eyes locked onto him.
At the same time, Cole broke into a sprint towards the two men; Chinese agents or not, they were about to shoot him in cold blood, and Cole could now feel justified in any action he might take against them.
He raced between the cars and chopped the callused edge of his hand down onto the forearm of the first man, making him drop the gun which was still only half-way out; at the same time, he slashed across at the second man, aiming for the throat.
But the agent moved with seemingly superhuman speed, dropping his gun — near useless now at this distance — and stopping Cole’s arm with a vice-like grip around his wrist, stiletto blade just an inch from his throat.
Cole felt a blow to the side of his head from the first man, a powerful shot from someone who knew what he was doing, and he felt his knees buckle beneath him, even as the second man twisted the knife from his grasp.
The first man aimed a fast roundhouse kick at his head, but Cole managed to slip underneath, taking hold of the man’s groin and violently twisting his testicles, shooting out a low side-kick to the second man’s knee.
The man with the mangled groin stifled a scream but fell to the sidewalk, and the second jammed a foot into Cole’s leg to stop the kick, jabbing the pointed blade of Cole’s dagger towards his face.
Cole slipped his head to one side, aiming his hardened fingertips in a dagger thrust of his own. The blow caught the man just next to the solar plexus, his jacket putting Cole’s aim off slightly, but it was enough to stun him momentarily.
Not knowing what was going on inside the restaurant, Cole knew he had to end this encounter quickly; but the men were damned good, and wouldn’t make it easy for him.
He turned to kick the first man, but to Cole’s surprise, he was already back on his feet, launching a vicious spinning kick of his own towards Cole’s head.
Cole knew the blow would be aimed at his temple; a killing technique, and one of the trademarks of the martial art of taekwondo. Cole wondered for a brief instant if the men could be Korean — and if so, what the hell their interest in this could be — and then ducked inside the kick, catching the kicking leg under one arm and scooping up the man’s body with the other, kicking out the supporting leg from underneath him.
Manhandling the expert martial artist, Cole threw him directly into his colleague, both men crashing to the concrete.
Knowing he would have just moments before the men were back on top of him, Cole turned to the restaurant and ran.
Park could hear something happening outside, but knew his men could take care of it. All four of them were not only experts in unarmed combat, but were also crack shots and superb knife fighters. Whatever problem they were having wouldn’t be a problem for long.
Wong Xiang had seen Park by this time, looking up from his menu to see the two North Korean agents stalking towards him, staff members already backing away to one side, fearful of what was happening.
Wong took in the sight of the pistols in the men’s hands and immediately went for his own.
Park fired once, a shot which took the man in the pink t-shirt right between the eyes.
Between the sound of the shot and the time when the man’s body finally toppled backwards to the floor, the whole restaurant erupted into chaos; the staff were running for the kitchen, customers were either rooted to the spot in fear or else throwing themselves to the floor or backing away to the front door.
‘Stop!’ Park called out in broken English. ‘Everybody down on the floor!’ he ordered. ‘Now!’
His gun never left Wong’s head, and Chae rushed forward to disarm the man, pocketing his expensive SIG-Sauer 10mm. Chae’s own gun now at the man’s head, he forced the broker to stand.
‘Whatever you’re being paid,’ Wong said evenly, ‘I’ll be able to beat it. Trust me.’
Park smiled; not a friendly gesture, it was the smile of a predator about to consume its prey. ‘Not everyone is motivated by money, Mr. Wong.’
‘Come on,’ Wong persisted, ‘everyone wants something. What do —’
Park saw then that Wong was just playing for time; first he saw the man’s eyes flicker behind him, then he saw Chae turn to look in the same direction, gun immediately leaving Wong’s head and aiming over Park’s own shoulder.
Park’s head turned just in time to see a Caucasian man running towards him at high-speed.
Cole’s tackle took Park right off his feet, and Cole kept the man going backwards until he crashed Park’s body into Chae’s, knocking both men to the floor.
As soon as the men hit the ground, Cole grabbed hold of Wong’s forearm and pulled him towards the rear of the restaurant, his cupped open hand slapping Chae’s rising head over the ear as they went.
But then a hand reached out and gripped Cole’s leg, tripping him. Cole went down, but as he fell, he managed to grab a fork from the next table. As soon as he hit the floor, he was already sitting back up, and jammed the fork deep into the hand which was holding his leg.
He felt, rather than saw, a fist hurtling towards him from the side, and managed to get back to his feet to avoid the blow, picking up a chair in the same movement and turning, letting the chair come crashing down over Chae’s head.
He pirouetted and kicked Park across the jaw just as he was standing, but the man’s resilience was astounding; he staggered backwards but took the blow and immediately responded by kicking the edge of the nearest table, driving it across the tiled floor until the opposite end struck Cole hard in the gut, doubling him over.